The present invention relates broadly to frequency multipliers, and in particular to an electronically switchable amplifier-oscillator frequency multiplier apparatus.
In the prior art, the use of amplifiers and oscillators is well known. Basically the amplifier is a device capable of increasing the magnitude of power level of a physical quantity that is varying with time, without distorting the wave shape of the quantity. The great majority of amplifiers are electronic and depend upon transistors or vacuum tubes for their operation. The oscillator is an electronic circuit that converts energy from a direct-current source into a periodically varying electrical output. If the output voltage is a sine-wave function of time, the generator is called a sinusoidal oscillator. There does exist between the amplifier and the oscillator a common denominator in that one type of simple oscillator may be achieved by utilizing an amplifier with its output fed back through a feedback network to the input to cause this circuit to oscillate. The present apparatus provides an amplifier-oscillator apparatus that is electrically switchable to provide either a coherent amplifier or a non-coherent oscillator.